Microfluidic systems and methods are becoming increasingly significant for providing benefits of much larger systems or facilities (such as, but not limited to, laboratories or biological environments) with increased efficiency as well as reduced size, cost, and/or complexity. Such microfluidic systems and methods have various benefits and advantages for a multitude of applications, including but not limited to the area of biology.
As one nonlimiting example, technology assisted reproduction techniques in which embryos are handled independently from their mammalian biological source are growing in importance and frequency of use. For example, such techniques have great direct benefit to persons unable to have babies through unassisted sexual reproduction. The agricultural industries also increasingly rely upon such assisted reproduction techniques. Embryo manipulation is used in livestock reproduction to control such things as the faster genetic evolution of cattle and permitting the genetic characteristics of a single exceptional cow or bull to be passed on to far greater numbers of offspring than would be possible through unassisted sexual reproduction.
In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is an appropriate microfluidic application, since microfluidic technology can provide accurate control of a micro-environment surrounding the cells. An example of microfluidic technology for IVF is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,695,765 (the '765 patent), which is incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.
Livestock embryo manipulation is becoming more routine due to the development of gene manipulation, cloning, and IVF techniques. The overall goal of embryo manipulation in livestock is to increase production efficiency, especially with regard to reproduction, milk production, or production of specific milk components, lean tissue growth with reduced fat content, and/or decreased susceptibility to specific diseases. Embryo transfer is also used to introduce or rescue valuable germplasm and propagate rare breeding animals such as endangered exotic species.
Expense and relatively low success rates place significant burdens on the use of these assisted reproduction techniques for humans as well as livestock. In human reproduction such expense and failure adds emotional as well as economic burdens. In addition, safeguards against failures often result in multiple births, as well as additional stored embryos. Expense is the primary concern in livestock reproduction. Failure rates in reproduction techniques as well as testing and other embryo handling techniques are attributable primarily to the significant handling and manipulation of embryos in executing these techniques.
Microfluidic systems can be applied to other types of biological systems. Another example application for a microfluidic system is to create an in-vivo-like culture microenvironment for embryos. Yet another example application is a microchannel system including passive pumping, for cell/embryo/oocyte culture and chemical analysis. Still another example microfluidic system is used for cell testing.